§2 THE UNAPPRECIATED FISHER FOLK. 
per barrel on the cured fish alone would yield all that is 
necessary to replace boats and fishing-gear in times of 
adversity. The Scottish Fishery board—the usefulness of 
which is sometimes called in question both in parliament 
and elsewhere—might be intrusted with the collection of 
the money. The Board has already in active work an 
organisation for collecting the fees on every barrel of 
herrings that is branded ; it would not be difficult, there- 
fore, for the officers of the Board to collect whatever sum 
may be agreed upon from the fishetmen.”* 
In making such suggestions we will probably be met by 
the answer, that fishery boards, with whom would rest 
the business of collection, have not the power to inter- 
fere in these matters; but the power, we fancy, will not 
be ill to procure. In Ireland, as has been shown, the 
fishery inspectors carry on similar work, they administer 
a fishermen’s loan fund, which has been productive of 
good by enabling persons to obtain boats and fishing gear 
who could not otherwise have obtained it. There are 
other means by which fishermen may provide a fund for 
the proverbial rainy day ; other devices might easily be 
fallen upon, but we daresay it will be found, in this as in 
other matters, that the simplest means are best. 
Some unkind remarks have recently been made regarding 
the want of intelligence shown by fishermen in following 
their calling. They are accused of knowing nothing, or at 
least very little, about the natural history and habits of the 
animals they capture ; the accusation is most gratuitous, 
seeing that it is by means of their knowledge—be it much 
or litthe—that we obtain all the fish which are brought to 
market. The writer in his time has passed many days with 
the fisher folk, and has found them with regard to their 
“ Chambers’s Journal,” Feby. 18, 1882. 
